Ebook Gabriel

While this short conversation was going on, the cobbler's neighbours had as it were accidentally got nearer, so as to overhear a few words; and the group that for some minutes had been hazarding the most ingenious opinions and conjectures about the stranger, formed, perhaps without noticing it, a complete circle round the two talkers. This was now suddenly broken through, and a shabbily dressed old man thrust himself up impetuously against the stranger.